This month has been crazy, sort of not so great for me. Grand dad sick in hospital, too many weddings to attend and a crazy painful stomach! I have started feeling that somewhere just because I am a chef I am not really watching what I am eating.

Watch what you eat...

Overindulgence you see. I dont wanna turn up like the lady in the pic So I am going to watch what I eat now. Winters vegetables are great. Will go for more salads and soups and forget the shaadi food! Ahh my heart breaks thinking about not trying this and that…and at the same time I know I got to do it.

I have been working on some Christmas goodies for you foodaholics out there. One of the few items that will be available will be fudge with lots of different flavours which will be available through the website. Watch out the space for the upcoming goodies.

I have been bad with blogging and I will probably post some in post date to show what I have read over a period of time. To begin with try the Kanji recipe I saw on face book. Give it a try!

Why am i telling you this recipe..well one its the season second its really healthy!

Swapan writes some very interesting daily tips.From something nice: a dish, a restaurant, a wine, a place to stay in, a pickle to buy, a cd to listen to, a dvd to watch, great places to get food from, artists to collect, books to read. He posts a tip a day. Check it out here

It’s that time of the year when this becomes mandatory drinking. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

1 kg dark carrots

2 teaspoons Rai Dana ( Mustard Seeds)

4 teaspoon salt.

2 teaspoon red chilli ( less or more according to your taste)

5 Pudina Leaves ( Mint leaves)

4 litre water

Instructions:

1. Wash and scrape the carrots lightly.

2. Cut the carrots in 1 inche long pieces.

3. Take the mustard seeds and dry grind them in a mortar and pestle.

4. Take a mixing bowl and add mix the carrots with salt, red chilli, Mustard Seeds. ( Take a steel bowl or heat proof mixing bowl, otherwise it will crack)

5. Take 4 litres of water and bring to boil.

6. Now add the hot water in the mixing bowl.

7. Let this mixture cool down.

8. Add this mixture on cooling into an airtight wide mouth jar or bottle.

9.Now keep this bottle in the sun for 5 days, during the day just shake the bottle once or twice. ( Each night bring in the bottle and keep at room temperature. )

10. After 5 days keep this bottle in the fridge.

11. Serve chiiled with some mint leaves.

2 Minutes Maggi

Do you have craving for maggi? I do that too in the middle of the night!

In my school days when mom made boring food (now I love it) like ghiya toori and tinda I would ask her too cook me maggi with green peas and eat it with chapatti.

All of us have weird taste buds and sometimes we have the most annoying combination of food. I have gf’s who love to eat cheese with sambar- gross isn’t it!!! But they relate to there hostel days with it .This post might seem dumb or what the hell is this for few people but I decided to blog about maggi. We can’t deny we all have junk food.

Maggi- they have some really cute commercials and as they say everyone has there own story of maggi. Maggi is a big brand with soups, sauces, stock cubes .I can’t think of any Asian country esp. South East Asian that doesn’t carry this brand. Maggi noodles are a big hit – esp. there tag line 2 min noodles!

Maggi noodles recently introduced a new variety of its noodles, to cater for the health conscious like ‘No MSG’, ‘Less Salt’, and ‘No Trans fat’. A whole wheat flour based noodle variation marketed by the name “Vegetable Atta Noodles” has been introduced in India. My personal favourite is Maggie Masala.

My best memories of Maggie – I was living in San Diego then and I was visiting home. I decided to go Vipasana Meditation course with My friend Krishna and her portuguese bf Diego in Dharam Kot(Close to famous His holiness Dalai Lama’s House).having maggi in the mountains has a different feel. May be it’s the water or the chilly weather; I don’t have words to explain. But it was an aesthetic experience having Maggi after 14 days of Satvik one time meal in the meditation camp!

Tell me what are your memories of Maggie??

So a couple of days back I had sent my driver to pick up some fruits and veggies on his way back from a cake delivery! While he was shopping for the stuff I also called him to pick up some green onions. I was thinking I’ll make some Chinese food. This is how the conversation went:

S: Ji didi?
K: Sunil get some hara pyaaj also!
S: Ji didi!
After 15 mins I call him to check if he had enough cash!

K: Sunil pese hai na tumhare paas? (Sunil do you have enough money?)
S: Ji didi abhi mene apne paas se de diye hai. (I have given money from my side)
K: Pyaz kitne ke aaya?
S: Didi Rs.150 ka!
K: What …kesa kaunsa pyaz kharida hai??

I just put the phone down and cracked up! When he came home I realized what he did. He picked up 2 kgs of it! Like I had to cook for a wedding! Why what was the reason I really couldn’t understand and I just looked at him and said u had to get 100 Gms!! What happened…he was so confused himself I just let it be!!

So what do I do with 2 kgs of green onions? We sent some to the neighbours; we add that in all the vegetables as garnish! And we still have a lot left…

So mom decided to make some Green Onion Sabzi. I quite liked it myself. Simple it was!

Take some mustard oil heat it add some potatoes and sauté them till golden brown and partially cooked. Cover for 5-10 mins and cook it all the way…And add the chopped green onions. Add salt pepper and Red chilli powder to taste.

Quick and delicious!

My pantry stock is moving slow. I haven’t been cooking a lot lately. Diwali season, work, Ted India coming close and 1000 other things on mind I am lazy to cook and eat whatever Mom makes. She is my inspiration always. Check what I had to say about her here.

Hats off to people who can blog everyday, I follow so many blogs but I never get the chance to comment. I read them as bed time stories on a regular basis. I think that blog fever hasn’t gotten to me yet and nor has the twitter fever. I am quite internet savvy but not so much. I don’t know how people manage to twit 24/7..its quite an art /task to accomplish! When I do I shall let you guys know

Dinner was simple food – coconut curry with rice
I don’t have an exact recipe coz I put whatever was in the fridge to the masala’s my hand could reach, literally being on phone with a customer who was ordering a cake

Take some oil; add some ginger garlic and green chillies, a small diced onion and sauté till golden brown. Add some lemon grass galangal, kaffir lime leaves if you have them else the Rs.20 Thai curry paste will also do and sauté for next min or so. Add in veggies that you have at home. My collection was sort of boring (Thai green eggplant, mushrooms, yellow peppers, baby corn, broccoli, tomatoes, but the addition of tofu added to the textures of veggies).Add a can of coconut cream to it. Give it a boil and it’s done! Voila enjoy with steamed rice and some freshly squeezed lemon juice.
So guess what I added in the curry to it give it a crunch??
Haldiram’s Nut Cracker heheh!

Busy with so many things around haven’t blogged so much. Have been craving pad thai for a while now and I guess with brother back in town it kind of gave me a push to make it. I have a lot of fond memories with Thailand and some bitter ones too. Customarily Pad Thai is a dish of stir-fried rice noodles with eggs, fish sauce, tamarind juice, red chilli pepper, plus any combination of bean sprouts, shrimp, chicken, or tofu, garnished with crushed peanuts and coriander. It is normally served with a piece of lime, the juice of which can be added along with Thai condiments. Pad Thai is one of Thailand’s national dishes.

I don’t follow the traditional recipe of the same. I cook with the veggies I have and cook the amount according to the number of people eating. Being the house filled with foodies we generally tend to have a lot of food around. Plus my pantry is filled with all exotic items.

Here is quick recipe:

I packet Pad Thai rice noodles
1 box silken tofu
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
1 Red onion Sliced
3-4 Snow Peas Chopped
10-12 beans sliced length wise
½ head cauliflower chopped
2 cups bean sprouts
2 green onions, sliced
1/3 cup fresh coriander/cilantro
1/4 cup ground peanuts

PAD THAI SAUCE:
3/4 Tbsp. tamarind paste
1/4 cup hot water
4 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1/2 to 2 tsp. chilli sauce (to taste)
2 Tbsp Honey

OTHER:
3-4 Tbsp. oil for stir-frying
2-3 Tbsp. beg stock or water
Lemon wedges for serving

Preparation:

• Bring a pot of water to a bubble and remove from heat. Bathe as I would like to say noodles in the hot water for 6-8 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water.

Tip: Noodles are ready to drain when they are soft enough to eat, but still firm and a little bit “crunchy”. The noodles will finish cooking when they are fried.

• Dissolve the tamarind paste in the hot water. Add the other pad thai sauce ingredients and stir well to dissolve the sugar. Add as much or as little chilli sauce as you prefer, but don’t skimp on the sugar (you need it to balance the sourness of the tamarind).

• Reserve

• Place your wok (Kadai if you don’t have wok) over medium-high heat.

• Add 1-2 Tbsp. oil plus the garlic and red onion

• Stir-fry 1 minute till translucent.

• Add all the veggies/tofu and stir fry again for a min or so.

• Add the noodles.

• Add half the pad thai sauce (coconut milk optional)and continue stir-frying in the same way for 1-2 more minutes, or until the noodles begin to soften and become sticky. Reduce heat to medium if noodles begin to stick and burn.

• Add the bean sprouts plus the remaining sauce. Stir-fry to incorporate everything together for 1-3 more minutes, or until noodles are done.

• To garnish in end add peanuts, lemon juice and some sweet basil and some cherry tomatoes.

Enjoy and tell me how it was…I for sure ate and enjoyed!!